Archive for the ‘Learning’ Category
Posted by Ted Hopton on September 18, 2009
I don’t want to imply that I have not been proud of my daughter before (hence, “newly”), but I realized today that I’m feeling proud of her for a new reason: she’s vastly broadened her life and career options.
Despite being plenty bright and intelligent, she’s long struggled in school. In fact, kindergarten was the last time she had excelled. She had a wonderful kindergarten teacher who encouraged her to explore as a learner, and that was an environment in which she thrived. Once she encountered the more rigid expectations of grade school, her interest faded and a seemingly endless struggle ensued, until she finally graduated from high school (by the skin of her teeth).
After a year away from school in which she realized how much money it actually takes to live the way she’s used to, she started in a community college degree program in Veterinary Technology. And everything changed because she was excited about what she was learning. She studied hard, went to professors for extra help, became part of a study group with experienced students, and found herself getting good grades.
But it’s not the good grades that I’m most proud of, I now realize. It’s all the possibilities that she’s opened up for herself by learning how to learn. People who learn well can do just about anything. They can respond to economic adversity by acquiring new skills. They can pursue their dreams by learning to do what’s needed to achieve them. In short, their lives become an expanding web of possibilities. And that’s the exciting kind of life I’d wish for anyone to have.
So, becoming a good student isn’t about the GPA. It’s about opening the door to amazing opportunities. That’s why I’m such a proud father today!
Posted in Career, Education, Learning, Parenting | Tagged: Career, Education, Parenting | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on June 7, 2008
I’ve always liked the title of the series of technology help books called “The Missing Manual.” The accurate and perceptive premise is that manufacturers rarely provide as much guidance as you would like for the sophisticated technology they have sold to you. These books, written by a third-party expert, help you get the most out of your purchase, and teach you all kinds of tricks to make it easier to understand and use.
So, this title caught my attention — Your Brain: The Missing Manual. Very clever. I didn’t buy my brain, but it sure is a complex tool that I wish I knew how to use better, and there’s no user’s guide, either. I haven’t read this book, so I can’t comment on it, but I am curious about it and will look into it.
Posted in Health, Human Interest, Learning, Science | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo will speak Thursday afternoon at the TED conference about parallels between his infamous 1971 “prison experiment” at Stanford and prisoner abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq more than 30 years later. Wired.com has an exclusive video from Zimbardo’s talk, featuring Abu Ghraib photos he says are previously unseen.
read more | digg story
Posted in Ethics, Leadership, Learning, Research, Science | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
Fake it ’til you make it!
It’s easiest to change the mind by changing behavior, and that’s probably as true in the office as on the pitching mound.
read more | digg story
Posted in Learning, Science, Sports | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 24, 2008
Students have long opted to go abroad for a semester or a year as part of their undergraduate educational experience. But now their schools are going overseas, too, as this NYT article explains: “Universities Rush to Set Up Outposts Abroad.”
In a kind of educational gold rush, American universities are competing to set up outposts in countries with limited higher education opportunities. American universities — not to mention Australian and British ones, which also offer instruction in English, the lingua franca of academia — are starting, or expanding, hundreds of programs and partnerships in booming markets like China, India and Singapore.
It’s not going to be a simple matter to accomplish. But I like the idea of exporting US higher education. We’ve already made an indelible mark on so many other cultures through our commercial influence — not to mention military presence — and our system of higher education offers what I’d like to think of as the best view of our culture. It’s a side of of “us” that we can all be proud of, and the effects of spreading “American” education around the world could turn out to be far more positive and meaningful in the long run than anything else we’ve done.
I know I’m biased, as a former teacher, but I believe learning is almost always a good thing.
Posted in Learning | Tagged: American colleges, American universities, Education, Learning, study abroad | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 28, 2008
I just published an interesting response from a frontline supervisor to a question in ICMI’s QueueTips: “Call Center Management Structure” (Response #3). But it wasn’t the content of the posting that got my attention as much as her closing comment:
I would love to know more about how other call centers are structured as I am writing a master’s thesis on the topic of call center leadership. — Karen, L.L. Bean, Inc.
Pretty cool! Do you know how many of your frontline supervisors are writing a thesis on some aspect of call center management? How much are you doing to encourage this kind of professional development in your management team?
call center management
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, ICMI, ICMI's QueueTips, Learning | Tagged: Call Centers, Education, ICMI, ICMI's QueueTips | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 21, 2008
William Kristol’s NYT column, “Thoroughly Unmodern McCain,” presents an interesting analysis of McCain’s appeal and suggests it could be just what we need.
In his victory speech after winning the South Carolina primary Saturday night, John McCain acknowledged the economic challenges we face, and then said: “But nothing is inevitable in our country. We are the captains of our fate.” McCain comes from a generation that, in its youth, was made to memorize poetry… one of the poems he had memorized in school was William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” (1875)….One can see why “Invictus” might have appealed to the young McCain. One can see why snatches of it might have stuck in his mind while a prisoner of war, and after. But his allusion to its coda reminds us of what’s so distinctive about McCain as a contemporary political figure: He’s not thoroughly modern….
Maybe a dose of this type of neo-Victorianism is what the 21st century needs. A fair number of Republican and independent voters seem to think so, if one can infer as much from their support of McCain at the polls. But, amazingly, a neo-Victorian straightforwardness might also turn out to be strategically smart.
I can’t say I agree that John McCain is what we need, but it’s a fair point to make that he’s distinctly different in more ways than are commonly acknowledged. He is doing it his way, and that’s worth admiring.
Posted in Learning, Politics | Tagged: opinion, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 17, 2008
The pitch — “a YouTube for ideas” — appealed to Mr. Summers. “Larry, to his credit, is open to new ideas,” Mr. Hopkins recalled recently. “He grilled me for two hours.” In the age of user-generated content, Mr. Summers did have one worry: “Let’s say someone puts up a porn video next to my macroeconomic speech?”
The NYT article, “Ex-Harvard President Meets a Former Student, and Intellectual Sparks Fly,” is good reading in and of itself, providing an inside look at the launch of a new concept and company, but what’s most interesting to me is the new website itself, Big Think. I’m looking forward to indulging my inner intellectual by checking it out.
read more | digg story
Posted in Learning, Web 2.0 | Tagged: business development, Learning, user-generated, Video, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 14, 2008
Here’s the Digg summary of Part Two of Stanley Fish’s examination of the value of studying the humanities:
Do you think the humanities have a use in today’s society? Here is a great public discussion on the issue.
Now, I’ll save you some time: don’t bother reading the article unless you are truly an intellectual in search of some mind-bending reasoning about quite an obscure subject. However, in the next breath I have to say that I am astonished at how many people have commented on the article already! So, there are a heckuva lot of intellectuals out there reading Stanley Fish’s argument, and that kind of impresses me.
read more | digg story
Posted in Learning | Tagged: Education, humanities, opinion | Leave a Comment »
